Life Of Frank P. Sargent (1888)

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F. P. SARGENT, Grand Master.

pHOSE familiar with biographical history are aware that circumstances are
8t potent factors in giving men distinction and prominence in human affairs, and

this is specially true in the United States, where men in the humbler walks of
^P 3 life, in multiplied instances, achieve eminence. But it must not be overlooked
that the youth, from the farm and shop, whose alma mater is the district school, " in
advancing to the front"' in the armies of progress, always possesses in a greater or less
degree inherent qualities, without which obscurity, in spite of circumstances or
occasions, is an irrevocable verdict.

Frank P. Sargent, the subject of this sketch, is a native of Vermont, the Green
Mountain State, where he was born November 18, 1851, and is therefore in the
thirty-seventh year of his age. The place of his birth and his boyhood home, at East
Orange, Orange County, is justly celebrated for its mountain scenery, hills and valleys,
its babbling brooks, foaming streams and numerous cascades., miniature Niagaras. In
no part of the broad land are homes more attractive, and Vermont, whose star was the
first to flash upon the blue field of our flag, after the Union was formed, has kept well
abreast of other New England States in peopling the great West with her hardy sons.
It was amidst such scenes of natural beauty that Frank passed his infancy and young
boyhood. He angled for trout; he slid down hill; he was in the front rank of the
snow-ball brigade; was vigorous in attack and discreet in retreat;, and in his callow days
exhibited those traits of leadership and self reliance which later in life have borne rich
fruit.

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His education was obtained at the district school, where he graduated at seventeen/
He had mastered the three R's, Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic, and was ready for the
battles of life. Those at all familiar with New England rural life know the winters are
set apart for schooling, and the vernal and summer months are devoted to hard work to
make an unprolific soil cheer the hearts of farmers with small dividends for the
investment of toil and sweat. All these lessons young Sargent had learned by the time
he was seventeen years of age. At that time came the first departure. He- left the old
home —

"The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood,
And every lov'd object his infancy knew,"

To try his fortunes at Manchester, N. H., where he had been apprenticed to learn the
art of photography. This he mastered in all of its details, and practiced it in
Manchester, Philadelphia, and Haverhill, Massachusetts, until 1879, when, his health
failing, he was advised to regain it by visiting the salubrious, health-giving climate of
Arizona. To accomplish this, the extremely practical idea suggested itself to combine
equestrian exercise with the exploration for health-giving altitudes, longitudes and
latitudes, and our hero enlisted in the United States Cavalry, and in 1880 was at Fort
Apache, Arizona, under the command of Captain E. C. Hentig ; and in the summer of
that year was engaged in Arizona and Mexico in following the famous Victoria band.
of Apaches, and in an engagement at Cibicue, near the Apache reservation, Captain
Hentig was killed.

In this way Mr. Sargent fought for health and for his country in the same cam-
paign, and upon his return to Fort Apache, in the month of November, with health,
fully restored and the Apaches reduced to obedience, he made application for an.
honorable discharge from the service, which was granted November ri, 1880.

From Fort Apache Mr, Sargent went to Tucson, Arizona, and began service as a.
railroad employe December 1, 1880, on the Southern Pacific, his position being that
of a wiper. In this position he served three months, when he was promoted to the
position of fireman on a construction train, and from this position to a fireman in the
road service. It will be observed that promotions followed in quick succession, an.
evidence that the new railroad employe had determined to master the business, and
that his employers saw in their man a disposition to work and climb.

Mr. Sargent took an early and active interest in the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Firemen. He saw its purposes were good and that its possibilities were of far-reaching;
importance, and on the 20th day of October, 1881, just eleven months and nineteen days
from the time he began service as a railroad employe, he was initiated into the Brother-

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hood — not in a hall blazing with light, but in a coal bin at Tucson. From the first
Mr. Sargent took an active part in the affairs of the Order. As a member of Cactus
Lodge, No. 94, he became its Financier, and made the Lodge conspicuous in the
Brotherhood for a splendid financial record, than which nothing so distinguishes a
lodge. His active and intelligent participancy in the affairs of his Lodge and of the
Order made him a delegate to the Terre Haute convention of the Order in 1882, in
which he exhibited exceptional qualifications in the deliberations and policy of the
Brotherhood, and at the convention in Denver, where he was again a delegate, he was
elected Vice Grand Master of the Brotherhood. From the first Mr. Sargent's course
was distinguished by great prudence and a capacity for sound advice, which pointed
him out as the coming man of the Brotherhood, and in 1885, at the Philadelphia
Convention, the great Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen gave evidence of its wisdom
and its appreciation of merit by electing him Grand Master, the highest office of the
Brotherhood,

■ In doing this, no mistake was made. Since the date of Mr. Sargent's election as
Grand Master the Brotherhood has prospered ; it has grown in numerical and moral
power. Without factions, the beauty and blessings of harmony prevail throughout the
entire jurisdiction; and this is all the more notable, as, during the current year, -1888,
the Brotherhood has been put to a crucial test such as it never before experienced, a
test which demanded of its Grand Master, in an unusual degree, every quality of head
and heart which most pre-eminently distinguish a leader — prudence, wisdom, courage,
self-poise and self-reliance, and, withal, a tenacity of purpose that knows no variable-
ness nor shadow of turning.

In reviewing the subject, we see the New England boy, at seventeen years of age,
entering upon the duties of life, an apprentice exhibiting from the first a sturdy
purpose to win. With health impaired, he seeks the Far West ; fights Indians, regains
his health, and begins again at the bottom round of employment; finds rapid promo-
tion as a reward of merit; allies himself with a brotherhood of railroad employes,
takes a profound interest in its ambition and its policy, and in four short years
advances from the humble position of wiper to that of Grand Master of 384 lodges,
and a membership of 20,000. Mr, Sargent is now in the very prime of young manhood,
and does not look as though he would ever again have to go in search of health, for,
with an avoirdupois of two hundred pounds, he may Snap his fingers in the faces of
malaria or other disease-provoking agencies. Happy in his domestic relations, with a
home embellished by all that can win and hold manly men to the moorings of affec-
tion, Grand Master Sargent has before him the prospect of a long, happy, and useful life.

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